


postcards from io

by kali_asleep



Series: Envois [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Coma, F/M, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Love, Mild Gore, Pain, partners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 06:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6108586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kali_asleep/pseuds/kali_asleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ladybug can ignore the way her suit darkens with his blood, can almost pretend that he’s sleeping as she races to the hospital.</p><p>He’s beautiful without the mask, but then again, she always knew he would be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, but I'm not.

There’s no time for words. There’s only Hawkmoth, step after deliberate step, approaching a motionless Chat Noir. There’s only Ladybug, her struggle against the akuma holding her faltering as she watches Hawkmoth nudge her partner’s shoulder with an unfeeling boot. There’s only blood, coursing from somewhere under Chat’s matted blonde hair, forming ugly rivulets on the asphalt under his head.

Maybe Ladybug’s screams have been drowned out by the furious pounding of her heart in her ears, but maybe she’s just stopped screaming. 

Hawkmoth kneels down. His tight, cold smile looms over the unconscious hero, and it’s so _wrong_ , it’s so _awful_ that Ladybug wishes she had Chat’s Cataclysm. She’d wipe that smile off of Hawkmoth’s face - and everything else off of it, too. 

There’s no time for words. With unusual tenderness, Hawkmoth lifts Chat’s hand and pulls off the black ring that serves as his Miraculous. 

Chat unfurls in strobing green, and this time, Ladybug does scream. The mask and ears are gone, but it doesn’t matter, because still, all she can see of him is blond and blood. But Hawkmoth sees the face of Chat Noir uncovered, and his face falls flat.

He takes one unsteady step back.

“No-” Ladybug hears him breathe.

“This can’t be-”

Hawkmoth nearly trips over his next retreating step. He catches himself, turns, and flees.

Her vision is flooded with hundreds of white butterflies. The akuma holding her collapses. It and all of the other akuma Hawkmoth had created to bully them into submission sink back into their normal, human forms. It’s sheer force of will that keeps Ladybug’s knees from buckling under the weight of the suddenly inert Parisian. She casts off the grown man with the ease of a child throwing off a blanket and does not bother to check if he is okay.

The adrenaline rocketing through every cell in her body makes Chat Noir feather-light in her arms. With his head tucked near to her chest, she can feel every faint breath. Ladybug sends a wordless thanks up to Heaven, or the Universe, or the Miraculous, or whatever it might be that is keeping him alive. She can ignore the way her suit darkens with his blood, can almost pretend that he’s sleeping as she races to the hospital. 

He’s beautiful without the mask, but then again, she always knew he would be.

…

The photographer would go on to win a handful of prestigious international competitions. ‘It was a miracle,’ she’d say later, ‘That I was there at the hospital and had my camera just at the right time.’

It first pops up on Instagram, then the website for Le Monde, and it’s on the news by evening. The headline reads: “CHAT NOIR UNMASKED, INJURED”

[In the photo, Ladybug looks straight ahead to a point just beyond the camera. She’s flanked by masses of people on both sides, held back by a few desperate looking doctors. In her arms she carries boy, limp, face pressed to her chest but visible. Her lips are drawn tight and serious.](http://outsidethecavern.tumblr.com/post/140153445129/brettanomycroft-thnx-4-makin-me-suffer-take)

“The cat’s out of the bag,” the subheading reads, “Chat Noir is revealed to be well-known model Adrien Agreste.”

It’s not obvious in the next morning’s grainy reprint of the picture, but those who pull it up on in high-quality on their computer screens or cellphones know all too well about the tears that streak Ladybug’s cheeks.

  


…

“Drink.”

The dark head doesn’t lift, even as he tries to push the cup under her nose.

“How is he?” 

Her hollow voice makes him shiver. 

“I’ll tell you once you drink the water.”

That gets her attention. 

The crimson of her suit clashes with the mellow beige and blues of the surgery waiting rooms. In all of his years at the Assistance Publique, he’s never had to treat a superhero. He shifts uncomfortably in the flat-cushioned seat and waves the water cup in her face again.

“You’re risking dehydration,” he says, “Trust me. I’m a medical professional.”

“You’re a nurse,” Ladybug spits. He rolls his eyes at that - hero of Paris in his presence or no, some things never change.

“Yes, a medical professional. Now, I can update you on M. Agreste’s condition as soon as you hydrate.”

Behind the mask, all he reads is spite. She snatches the styrofoam cup from his, chugs it in two gulps, and crushes the cup. He nods and smiles benignly.

“M. Agreste’s injury was traumatic, but not life-threatening. He’s suffering from a pretty nasty concussion - we’re monitoring the swelling for the next 72 hours just in case. We have him under some extreme anesthesia right now, but we’ll start lessening the dosages over the next few hours as we continue to assess his condition.”

Ladybug nods along with a blank, angry look that tells him she hasn’t absorbed a word. “Can I see him?”

“We’re preparing him to be moved to a private room where we can keep an eye on his condition. I’ll take you there now, if you’d like. Typically visiting after hours is restricted to next of kin…”

He glances at her. Ladybug is already tensing. Her fists are clenched at her sides, shoulders starting to square off. This is not a fight that he, or anyone else at the hospital, wants to fight - even if they could.

“The doctors and hospital management have decided to make an exception for the Heroes of Paris.”

…

Ladybug isn’t sure if the exhaustion is hers or Tikki’s: her kwami had fallen silent hours ago, her pleas for _Marinette_ to take a break falling on deaf ears. She blinks the bleary film from her heavy eyes and fixes her stare back on the waiting room clock. The surgery waiting room is becoming a familiar fixture in her life. After all, this is the third time in twenty-four hours that the doctors have stopped her at the door to the surgery room, insisting her presence would be more hindrance than help. Her head hits the wall behind her with a dull thud. The pain barely registers. More important is the wall itself, separating her from the OR and from _him_. It’s the farthest she’s let them take him from her. Adrien.

That nurse has come to pester her a few times already. Even though she’s looking straight at the clock, she’s not quite sure what time it is, really, or how long exactly she’s been in the hospital. She’s sure, though, that nurse has been on the clock well past a normal shift. He keeps plying her with water, but at least he brings direct information - unlike the rest of the staff, who seem so stiff and high-strung to even look her in the eye. Ladybug can’t imagine why. She’s only threatened them once. Maybe twice.

The doors from surgery open and she’s on her feet in a heartbeat. It’s a surgeon, another one who can’t look her in the eye. His mouth starts moving. The words don’t make sense, no matter how hard she tries, because her brain refuses to process anything that isn’t “He’s awake” and “He wants to see you.”

“-uncertain as to when M. Agreste will regain consciousness.”

Ladybug hadn’t realized her hands had clenched into fists until the moment they go slack. In fact, everything goes slack: her hands, her jaw, the muscles of her legs. 

Linoleum hurts on impact. 

…

She’d probably be stiff, if everything didn’t feel so numb. Tikki’s started back up again, warning of their weariness, reminding Ladybug of the bruises on her knees and elbows. Remind her that a body eventually needs to sleep, recover.

That’s the thing, though. There’s no recovering from this. 

Every time the door swings open to admit a doctor with a clipboard or a nurse with an armload of equipment, there’s the swell of voices and an eruption of flashes. They haven’t managed to ward off the paparazzi yet. A few hours ago, that nurse mentioned that at least some of the reporters would probably leave if she went over and threatened them. But that would mean leaving Adrien’s side, would mean losing her grip on his cool, clammy hand. It’s not an option for Ladybug.

“Never,” she murmurs, to him, to herself. 

…

That nurse lets Alya in. Ladybug doesn’t know where he gets off, constantly being on shift, constantly hounding her with water and crumbly muffins from the hospital caf. Not like she eats them.

“Ladybug.”

Alya’s voice is raw, and when Ladybug looks up and meets her best friend’s eyes, she knows. Alya shuffles over and unslings a familiar-looking pink backpack from her shoulder. 

“Your parents are worried,” Alya continues. Without asking for permission, Alya sits in the one other chair in the room and unzips the backpack. Out comes a stack of neatly folded clothes, a small bag of toiletries, a smushed container of croissants, and a phone charger.

“They called me once you didn’t come home from school. It didn’t take long to put everything else together. They’ve tried to come up and get you, but of course, security is awful, and when they saw the crowd of reporters, they realized it’d be as good as outing you then and there.”

Alya sets everything on the small table between them. Her eyes are the hazy red of too many tears. She takes a shaky breath. 

“I wish you’d told me, but I understand now. The dangers. Knowing would have put any of us at risk.”

Her brown eyes wander to Adrien. His chest rises and falls peacefully, but otherwise, he does not stir. Ladybug stares at him, too, unable to look back at her friend, not yet. Alya was right, that had been Ladybug’s rationale from the beginning. Knowing the truth was a weak flank left exposed, a hazard Ladybug had tried to avoid. The people she cared about didn’t deserve to be put in danger’s way. 

But that didn’t stop him. Didn’t stop Chat - Adrien - from throwing himself in front of the akuma’s devastating, inhuman punch, didn’t stop Chat from hitting brick hard enough to buckle the building that stopped his unexpected flight. 

“I’m sorry,” Alya breathes, “This can’t be easy, especially now that you know it’s _him_. Changes things, now that you know Chat was Adrien the whole time, huh?”

Ladybug shakes her head hard enough to send a sharp pain shooting from temple to temple. 

“It changes nothing,” she says. Alya looks startled at the steel in her voice. “Chat is my partner, my friend, my-”

Reaching out, Ladybug wraps his hand in hers. She absently sweeps her thumb along the finger where his Miraculous used to sit.

“It changes nothing,” she repeats, “And I’m not leaving until he wakes up.”

…

“You were always too good for me,” Ladybug says. 

At least two suns have risen since she first brought him here; the third sun to set on this claustrophobic hospital room finds Ladybug’s vision swimming anytime she moves too quickly. So she doesn’t move, not much - only to check the pulse fluttering in his wrist, or to sweep small chips of ice across his chapped lips and watch them trickle down his tongue. His Adam’s Apple bobs, swallowing in reflex, but his eyes remain shut. He looks like he could be sleeping.

“You were always love, and life, and a smile just for me, and I was just- just an idiot.”

She’s so tired. It seems senseless, but the thought that if Ladybug closes her eyes, Adrien, Chat, will slip away, drives her to endless cups of coffee and a relentless need to stay awake. She won’t lose him - not again, not anymore. 

“What are you going to think, when you find out that I was head-over-heels for Adrien Agreste? You’ll probably laugh at me. I’ll deserve it, too.”

Her head feels heavy. She scoots her chair back so that she can lay her head on the edge of his bed without letting go of his hand. It only takes a few minutes for her neck to twinge in pain.

“Chat, I need you,” Ladybug whispers, “Adrien, please wake up. I-”

There’s no one to hear her. She wishes there were, she wishes with every ounce of emotion she hasn’t already dredged up, that there were one person next to her, awake, to hear the words that come next.

“I can’t do this without you.”

There’s no one to hear her, which mean there’s no one to stop her from giving in and climbing up into the hospital bed. She picks her way around his unmoving frame, careful not to bend or tug on one of the seemingly hundreds of wires connecting Adrien to a pile of buzzing machines and, ostensibly, life. 

He’s warm. She tucks herself against Adrien’s side, just as she’d dreamed of doing for all those years before. Loosely, gently, Ladybug lays one arm across his chest. The awful stagnant stench of sanitized hospital gowns and medical tubing and day’s old sweat still don’t fully mask a rich sweetness that is distinctly Chat. She buries her face in his shoulder, sucks in a hard breath, and cries.

…

One of the doctors edges the door open the next morning, accompanied by the ever-present fanfare of the press. She freezes in shock, clipboard hitting the floor with a clatter.

“It’s her!” a cameraman, squeezing up behind the doctor, gasps.

The words ripple down the hallway with a physical force: _Her-? Who? Who is it? Ladybug? It’s Ladybug? What-?_

The doctor recovers a second after the crowd starts to press into the private hospital room. She flings her arms out, trying to block them off, but it’s useless. Two camera people trip or slip past her before security can wrangle the writhing mass of media.

Curled against the prone form of a very recognizable Adrien Agreste is a small girl a wrinkled blouse and trousers. Her hair is split into dark, messy pigtails. She doesn’t stir as the cameras flash one thousand furious shots before being bodily removed by hospital security. 

It doesn’t take long for her face to be put to a name, and it takes even less time for the news to hit every major outlet.

Across thousands of Twitter feeds and millions of televisions flashes a single name: Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

…

Marinette recognizes a losing fight, so she sets out a cookie for Tikki and drags herself to the small shower of the bathroom attached to Adrien’s hospital room. It’s been over three days. Washing the grime from her body does little to alleviate the ache that starts in her chest and radiates out to every inch of her form, but at least she looks presentable for the first, and only, press conference she gives a few hours later.

…

One of the doctors, one of the many whose name Marinette has unintentionally never learned, walks in on Jerome, that nurse, teaching Marinette how to bathe Adrien. She props Adrien up by the bare shoulders as Jerome softly, demonstrates the proper way to sponge lightly around his IVs. Her hold is steady even with words like ‘groin’ and ‘catheter’, and even Jerome comments on her resolve. Marinette is unfazed when he pulls off the blanket covering Adrien’s lower half, but the doctor nearly has an aneurysm then and there. It is only out of - what was it, respect? deference? fear? - some sense of self-preservation that the doctor manages to drag Jerome out into the hallway before she rips into him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the doctor hisses.

Jerome shrugs. “She wanted to help, and asked how. She’s always refused to leave the room, regardless of the procedure we’re doing on him, so I figured that if she was going to hover, she could at least be useful.”

“It’s _inappropriate_ for a young girl.”

“She’s the Hero of the City,” Jerome says.

“She’s a _child_!” the doctor shouts. 

“She’s grieving.”

“We’re all grieving the loss of Chat Noir, but-”

Jerome’s glare is fierce enough to shut the doctor down. 

“None of us know what has to be going through her head right now. Everything - her partner, her privacy, maybe even her power - has been taken from her in one go. The only thing you, or me, or anyone else can do now is to make sure that _no one_ takes that boy away from her. I don’t care if it’s for one week, or one year, or the rest of our lives. Ladybug and Chat Noir saved my life once, and I know they had to have protected someone you’ve cared about before. We owe this to them. To her.”

Without another word, Jerome pushes past the doctor, enters the Agreste room, and slams the door behind him.

…

Her parents don’t say much. They come with food, and a change of clothes, and a kiss each for her forehead. If she’d been capable of looking away from Adrien long enough, she might have seen the look Tom and Sabine Dupain-Cheng exchange. But she doesn’t, because she can’t, and they walk out of the hospital hand-in-hand and understand.

…

“Special relativity, however, proclaims that the differences in observations between two such individuals are more subtle and profound. It makes the strange claim that observers in relative motion will have different perceptions of distance and of time. This means, as we shall see-”

The door clicks shut.

Marinette’s eyes flick up from the book she’d been reading out loud, annoyed. It was still another 23 minutes before someone came in and checked Adrien’s vitals, though Marinette had updated his vitals board just before she’d sat down to read to him. 

Gabriel Agreste stares back at her.

It’s been well over a week, and this is the first time he’s shown his face, the first time he’s come to visit his own son. The tabloids had their field day over it a while back, but the hot pulse of the injustice only hits Marinette now. She stands, hands balled at her side. 

He simply stares. His eyes take her in, slowly, like he’s never seen a human face before, like he vaguely recognizes what’s before him, but doesn’t know how to define it.

Marinette’s never seen him in person, but the Gabriel before her looks nothing like the man she’s seen on screen and page. Normally neat, well-coiffed hair falls lank around his cheeks, and sleeplessness bruises the skin around his eyes. His grey slacks are wrinkled beyond salvation, and he wears a stained dress shirt, sleeves rolled unevenly to the elbows.

“You-”

He cuts her off with a shake of the head.

Each step he takes cracks loud enough to make her want to wince. Gabriel walks to the side of the bed opposite her and stops. His steely eyes seem muddled, clouded as they trace up his son’s listless shape. 

And then he pulls something out of his pocket, bends over, and sets them on the bed between them. Marinette knows both.

“I’ll kill you.” It comes from her lungs as a whisper, but nonetheless echoes in the still of the room.

“I’ll _kill_ you,” she says again. It doesn’t matter that she’s Marinette, not Ladybug, doesn’t matter that Tikki is curled up under the corner of Adrien’s pillow and that Marinette hasn’t eaten a proper meal in - days? A week? It makes no difference. She’ll tear Gabriel Agreste apart, limb by limb. She swings around the bed and slams her fist into his jaw.

Gabriel staggers back but says nothing, does nothing to defend himself.

“I’LL KILL YOU,” Marinette shrieks, and it’s not tears that blur her eyes but rage and confusion, and Gabriel doubles over when he takes a punch to the gut. 

He retreats a few feet, just out of her reach. Straightening, Gabriel stares her down, but there’s no fight there. It gives her enough pause for him to speak.

“It’s over,” Gabriel says, “I’ve lost everything.”

It’s not sympathy that stirs in her chest, nor is it even like pity. It’s the knowledge that Gabriel Agreste does not deserve the death she desperately wishes she could give him.

He steps out of the room. She never sees him again.

…

It takes a few hours, but eventually Tikki is able to coax the black kitten kwami out of Adrien’s ring. Tikki calls him Plagg, and offers him a slice of cheese from Marinette’s abandoned sandwich. He shakes his head, sniffles piteously at the sight of Adrien, and curls up on the pillow next to his cheek.

Nothing Marinette or Tikki does draws the kwami supposedly hiding in Hawkmoth’s abandoned broach. After a day or so of trying, Tikki suggests softly, woefully, that maybe they should just leave her be.

…

Two weeks pass in a molasses blur.

…

A nurse only comes three times a day, the doctor once. In the morning and in the afternoon, a staff member wheels in a cart with a covered plate of freshly cooked food and wheels out a cart with an uncovered plate of mostly uneaten food. By now, they trust that Marinette will alert them of any changes.

Jerome finally gives her a pass to the physical rehabilitation gym a few floors up. Every time he comes in to check in on Adrien, he shoves her into the hallway.

“You should be taking better care of yourself. Imagine how disappointed he’ll be when he wakes up and finds out that _neither_ of you can work up a good jog,” Jerome reasons.

Marinette’s lungs burn and her muscles ache. She’s not even running full speed and she’s winded, a long way from what she could do as Ladybug. But it clears her head and, for the first time in a while, makes her feel.

…

_In most fairytales the prince breaks the spell by kissing the princess. Can anyone tell us why?_

_Because only love can conquer hate._

“Please wake up,” Marinette begs. 

She leans over Adrien, runs a hand through the messy blond of his hair. It’s gotten longer, wilder. 

“Adrien, don’t do this anymore.”

One hand cups his cheek. His pulse thrums in her hands, strong. But it means nothing. His eyes don’t open, his lips don’t quirk into that warm smile.

She presses her head to his chest and lets herself cry. It’s been a while. Shudders wrack her body, and each breath she drags in cramps in her ribs. 

“I love you,” Marinette whispers wetly, “I’ve always loved you, and I’m an idiot, and I love you so please wake up.”

Her hands shift to his shoulders and her fingers dig in, hard. Like it might be enough to jolt him from sleep.

“Please, Chat. Please, Kitty, darling, love, Adrien - wake. up. I love you.”

Adrien’s lips are chapped. They are still. But they are warm and they fit perfectly under hers. 

…

It feels like an eternity ago Marinette learned that magic was real. Every moment of her life since meeting Tikki was magic wrapped in miracle.

So she shouldn’t be surprised to wake to the squalling of machines and vital monitoring devices. The high-pitched racket yanks her from sleep with a cold lurch - Marinette jumps, top of her head hitting something hard with a sharp crack. Her pulse is irregular with surprise, and she feels a little dizzy as she tries to steady herself and avoid collapsing back on Adrien with her full weight. 

“Ow…” she mumbles, untangling her hand from his to rub the crown of her head.

Her hand hits his chin. It moves above her. There’s a croaking sound that she does not make. 

Slowly, Marinette pulls away. The sound comes again, stronger. She finds she can’t quite breathe right. The hand she’d just let go of twitches. 

“Mah-” a breathy voice groans. 

When Marinette looks up, she sees bright green.


	2. part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He takes the hit for her, like he has one hundred times.
> 
> Chat feels the explosive pressure of a human juggernaut punch the air from his chest. He feels the lash of the wind as he is propelled away at high speeds. He feels the crushing lurch of inertia abruptly waylaid.
> 
> And then he feels nothing at all.

“Having a Miraculous doesn't change who you are. It just changes how you do something. And it doesn’t change why you do something, it just changes your ability to get it done.”

Electrified in flickering green, the shadow-black creature - a kwami, it had said - had seemed wise, powerful, almost godlike.

Adrien would quickly learn that lazy Plagg was hardly any of those things on a good day. From that point on, the most profound thing he remembers hearing Plagg say involves some convoluted metaphor for the world and Camembert. 

But Adrien doesn't forget what Plagg had said the night he gave Adrien the Miraculous. No, he raises those words like a banner in his heart and subsequently manages to get himself stuck in a lot of stupid situations.

…

This is not one of them, though he knows at least one person who would disagree.

“This doesn't have to be so difficult,” Hawkmoth says. At least, that’s what Chat thinks he says - it’s sort of impossible to hear over the wails and enraged screams of the five - six? - akumatized baddies Hawkmoth has set on them. It feels like cheating, but then again, they are Ladybug and Chat Noir.

“Oh come on,” Chat says, dodging the rocky fist of a geologist turned supervillain, “Don’t be so hard headed about this! I'm sure we shale work out an agreement.”

He gives his baton a rapid spin; it catches the villain in the chest and sends him stumbling back. Chat has just enough time to pivot back on his heel to avoid the razor edge of an incoming cardboard box. Whoever thought transforming a grocery shelver into an akuma was a good idea needed to have their villain card revoked. Chat and Ladybug could handle a few papercuts, even if they _were_ from boxes.

Ladybug dispatches an akuma with ease, and purifies one of them without even having to use her Lucky Charm. Despite Hawkmoth’s attempt at crowding them out - despite the physical presence oh Hawkmoth just himself - it seems like they’re going to come out of this one on top

Chat doesn't see the seventh akuma in time. Hawkmoth must have kept her back from the fight for that purpose. Surprise. He doesn't have time to figure out her power, or even call out a warning to Ladybug. Chat sees a bullet of pink and green barreling straight towards Ladybug and all he can do is act.

There is no time for words.

He takes the hit for her, like he has one hundred times.

Chat feels the explosive pressure of a human juggernaut punch the air from his chest. He feels the lash of the wind as he is propelled away at high speeds. He feels the crushing lurch of inertia abruptly waylaid.

And then he feels nothing at all.

…

The first thing he hears is a single word: “Never.”

Is it a promise? Or a condemnation?

...

There is a steady, mechanical beep. 

It must take an eternity to realize it is his heartbeat.

...

The pressure on his hand is better than the constant pricking he usually feels there. It must be progress, though, to recognize such things: hand, pressure, pain. 

Once it’s there, it doesn’t go away very often. When it does go away, he feels cold. That’s the next thing to come back: being cold. There’s not much to measure against, but in the limited spectrum of what he feels and what he knows, being cold ranks lowest.

When the pressure returns, he feels warm. It spreads from his palms and radiates across his chest. It is not quite light, because there is none of that here, but it is the second-best thing.

…

They move him a lot at first. Or maybe it’s not at first. Maybe it’s very rarely, on special occasions, with achingly long gaps of nothingness in between. It’s impossible to tell. 

The first time anything makes sense comes when they are moving him. It is dark, as it always is, and he feels cold. Muted sounds seem to circle him, high and low and quiet all together. And then, like a spark-

“Ladybug.”

He knows what that means. He _knows_ what that means, though he couldn’t explain it even if he were able to try. It’s just that it comes as no surprise that, a moment after a low voice speaks that word, he feels the pressure on his hand and warmth courses through him. _That_ is Ladybug.

…

“Adrien…”

It’s her. 

More and more is coming together. It’s like sediment, settled at the bottom of a jar of water, is being stirred. The particles of his life swell up with her name, the sound of her voice. Something is starting to take shape in the liquid depths.

Her grip on his hand goes painfully tight. 

“Adrien,” she says again. There’s a wavering to her voice. It strikes him as familiar in a way he does not know. 

“Adrien, it’s a mess out here.”

She’s talking to him. And just like her voice, the name feels familiar and at the same time, totally unlike who he is supposed to be.

…

It comes back more quickly from then on. He is aware more often than not, and when he hears the world around him, it no longer sounds as though it’s slogging through years of gelatin. There are markers, too: at regular intervals, someone comes in and sticks him with a needle, places a cold instrument on his chest and back, tugs at something attached to his nose. 

He’s in a hospital. That explains the beeping. He is in a hospital with Ladybug, and as far as he can tell, she has not left his side, not once. 

When no one else is around, she talks to him. When she stops talking, it’s often because she’s choked up with tears. Adrien can’t see her, but he can hear it in her voice, feel the warm, slick drops when she brings his hand to her cheek. He’d like to return her touch, reassure her that he’s _fine_ , it’s just _dark_ , but his fingers don’t cooperate. Usually she talks to him about their old adventures, or some bit of trivia about Paris, though it sometimes comes out a little hollow. It’s different, now.

“You were always too good for me,” Ladybug says.

Adrien pictures her silhouette framed by the rising moon and urges his lips to tell her just how wrong she is.

“You were always love, and life, and a smile just for me, and I was just- just an idiot.”

No, no, he can hear the sob in her voice once again. Whatever happened, he royally screwed something up. He imagines his eyes opening, envisions the red of her mask standing out against her pale skin. Maybe she would be close enough for him to see her freckles. She feels close enough. Adrien _needs his eyes to open_

They don’t.

“What are you going to think, when you find out that I was head-over-heels for Adrien Agreste? You’ll probably laugh at me. I’ll deserve it, too.”

His heart makes a strange blip. The heart monitor he must be connected to spits the inconsistency back at them, but Ladybug doesn’t seem to notice. The conversation only makes half-sense. Wasn’t he Adrien? But that’s not right, is it?

“Chat, I need you,” Ladybug whispers, “Adrien, please wake up. I- I can’t do this without you.”

That’s right.

_That’s right._

…

She falls asleep next to him in the hospital bed. 

Chat Noir would be delighted at the turn of events, but Adrien is too rattled with the way the haze in his brain is suddenly scrubbed away. It leaves everything raw. 

The last thing he remembers is fighting multiple akuma. Hawkmoth. The knot in his chest loosens a fraction with the knowledge that Ladybug made it out, but it’s not enough to undo the knowledge that he, Chat Noir, Adrien Agreste, did not. The hospital and the nurses and everything, it all makes sense again. 

What makes the most sense is the thing he fights to acknowledge. Blackness consumes everything around him, and nothing in his body responds to his brain. A tube in his nose pumps extra air into his lungs. IVs keep him hydrated. A nurse comes in at intervals to check his vitals. Ladybug refuses to leave. The warmth at his side should be a comfort. 

It’s not.

…

Some sort of ruckus stirs him. Adrien wouldn’t say it wakes him up, because really, the only discernible difference between sleep and wakefulness to him, in this state, is how hard he is paying attention.

“Of course she finally collapsed, she didn’t sleep for over _seventy-two_ hours!”

It’s the only other voice besides Ladybug’s that Adrien distinctly recognizes, because it’s the only other voice Ladybug ever responds to. He thinks it must belong to one of the nurses, because the voice always came with the cold end of a stethoscope.

“Certainly, but none of could have expected that she’d just suddenly _stop_ being Ladybug.” The other voice, clipped, female, sounds strained. “If we’d known that, I’m sure management would have had her sent home ages ago.”

The nurse scoffs at that and mutters something Adrien doesn’t have to hear to get the tenor of. The woman sounds flustered when she continues. 

“Regardless, we now have a media disaster on our hands. How are we supposed to treat M. Agreste in peace when a whole new flock of reporters will be coming in to try and get a scoop on - what’s her name?”

They pause long enough to Adrien to get a better bearing of his immediate surroundings. There is still a warm body next to his. How sharp Ladybug hasn’t woken up, even after three days without sleep, apparently, is a mystery to him.

“Nothing is confirmed, but Twitter’s saying her name is Marinette. Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

…

Adrien knows Marinette. 

Marinette sits behind him in class and still struggles sometimes to lay coherent sentences out on the table between them. Marinette brings him croissants from her parents’ bakery on Fridays and is good at video games. She is the only person besides himself who has ever stood up to Chloe, and the only person Alya loves more than Ladybug. So as soon as he hears her name, he knows it’s right.

He lets her sleep next to him, because he can’t do anything otherwise - not like he would, though. When the nurse and the woman - a doctor, he thinks - leave, Adrien is left with nothing to focus on but Marinette’s soft inhales and noisy exhales. He doesn’t need anyone to confirm that it is Marinette’s arm draped across his shoulder. The image in his head of Ladybug shifts to accommodate this new picture. It’s surprisingly easy.

Time passes. It’s impossible to tell how much: long enough for him to get bored, not long enough for another battery of vitals-checking from a nurse. Eventually, Marinette starts fidgeting, showing early signs of waking. Her breath shallows out, her arm twitches, her fingers flex and brush his cheek. The sensation of skin on skin is a previously undiscovered kind of thrilling - Adrien hears it play out on his EKG.

Marinette lets out a keening whimper. 

_Go back to sleep_ he thinks. Maybe it’s Adrien’s imagination, but it almost feels like his throat clenches in response. _You need to rest._

The trilling voice at his ear disagrees.

“Marinette! Marinette, wake up!”

Marinette’s words are slow honey when she murmurs, “Chat?”

Adrien makes an effort out of painting her in his mind: dark, tousled hair, maybe undone from her signature pigtails, face red and a little warm from just waking up, nose wrinkling as she closes her eyes against the noon-day sun (he assumes. The nurse rotations and the slow-moving patch of sunshine that creeps up his bed over the course of the day are the only indications he has of time). She'd be lovely, and his name was, fantastically, the first word on her lips.

“Marinette,” the little voice squeaks, “Wake up! You've detransformed!”

That little spot of peace Adrien had found yanks away when Marinette does; he feels the bed dip and shake with her weight when she suddenly sits up.

“Oh no, oh no, oh _merde_ ,” she hisses. She flings herself off of the bed, and he can hear her footsteps retreat to the other side of the room. A second later, water runs, and there’s splashing - likely a sink. 

“Tikki,” Marinette moans, “What am I going to _do_?” Her voice gets closer, and the chair next to his bed groans across the linoleum.

“Maybe no one saw you, it’s not too late to transform back,” Tikki, who must be Marinette’s kwami, says.

There’s a few beats of silence during which Adrien craves the ability to see Marinette’s face.

“No, it’s too late. Jerome at the very least has been in here - he updated the board this morning - and Dr. Bouchot was supposed to stop by this morning to pre-assess Adrien for the CT scan. They would have seen me, which means…”

Her swallow is audible.

“They know. They all know.”

Marinette takes his hand and addresses him.

“I couldn't protect us,” she says. It’s the most Ladybug she’s sounded since he’s regained semi-cognizance. “But I'm not going to let the press keep hounding you. Jerome was right, I should have chased them off the very first night. I’m sorry, _Chaton._ You don't deserve any of this.”

The chair creaks as Marinette lifts up from it. The kwami on his pillow flutters up and away. 

_Neither do you, Princess._

…

Adrien’s brain knows he’s breathing. Logically, he is very aware that he is hooked up to a running oxygen tank and being fed a constant supply of all of the things he needs to live. 

But his brain isn’t kicking in fast enough to outpace his body, and his body has been stuck here prone for so long that it’s starting to make his heart race. Sure, he can feel pain and pressure, but he hasn't been able to move, not _once_. He can’t twitch a finger or curl a toe, and the force with which uncertainty over his ability to keep breathing hits is overwhelming.

The doctors keep saying _coma_ , but they don't know he’s awake, that he’s been awake for what he judges is roughly week. Maybe Adrien isn't in a coma, maybe he’s gone blind, maybe he’s in full-body paralysis, maybe he’ll _never wake up._

Everything is void and still and Adrien is _trapped_. He sees himself clawing at floor of an endless room, but in the hospital, his fingers remain deadened. 

The heart monitor beeps a little faster, the closest thing Adrien’s got to a scream.

Marinette, half-napping in the chair, must drop something from her weary grip when she startles at the sudden sound. The clatter snaps him back to the present, though his heart still buzzes painfully.

“Chat? Chaton?” 

She delicately runs a hand through his hair, tugging a little to unwork a tangle. Her light touch on his scalp is tangible, grounding. 

“I know you’re there,” she continues, “and I know you're fighting. You have to be. The doctor doesn't know what she’s talking about, erratic, random pulse changes.”

Marinette keeps talking, and eventually Tikki joins in. They hold a conversation, but there is always some space there, some pause left open for him. As if he’d suddenly open his eyes and have something to say.

…

It feels like a dream, but he can’t be sure. Jerome had recommended a switch in one of his medications, and Adrien’s felt fuzzy and exceedingly sharp in weird cycles. 

“I’ll kill you.”

Is it Marinette, or Ladybug?

“I’ll _kill_ you.”

If Adrien is awake, he’s waking up in the middle of something important. If he’s asleep, then his dreams are _livid._

“I’LL KILL YOU!”

The crack that drifts through his mind sounds like that of flesh on flesh, a fist to a mouth. Chat Noir was familiar with that sound. If Adrien is awake, he slides back to sleep, and if Adrien is asleep, then his dreams flit off in some other, abstract direction.

…

Adrien _feels_ rather than hears Plagg. 

If he’s honest, Adrien hadn't let himself think on the kwami much. He came back to awareness in a hospital, after a battle with Hawkmoth: Adrien can put two and two together. But miraculously, Plagg returns.

_You in there, kid?_

It’s not words. More of a sensation of understanding, a pressing of knowledge half-construed as something like language. It’s a lot like how they’d communicated when he was transformed as Chat Noir.

_Plagg!_

And it’s not Plagg he sees, because Adrien can’t see. But the blackness around him darkens and lightens in odd, oscillating patterns, giving some form to the nothingness. Adrien gets the sudden impression that this, more than the tiny black ball of huffing fluff, is closer to Plagg’s true form.

 _I knew it!_ the kwami exclaims, _I knew you were in there!_

_How is this even happening?_

_I'm leveraging some of the remnant power from the Miraculous. I’m not going to have long, though - this kind of energy excess is usually fueled by the wearer of the Miraculous, and you’re not Chat Noir right now. How are you, Adrien?_

Adrien rolls his mind’s eye - it’s the best he can do. 

_Oh, just fine, Plagg. Enjoying being trapped in my own head just about as much as one might expect._

Plagg snorts, and it lightens some of the weight.

 _She’s worried about you, you know,_ Plagg says, tanking said lightness in classic Plagg style.

_Ladybug?_

_Marinette. Tikki and I have been trying to get her to go out and do… anything, but she won't leave the hospital. You'd better wake up soon. For all of us._

_I’m on it,_ Adrien thinks. If it’s possible to think in a bitter tone, he does. 

The dark spots of Plagg’s presence flicker all too soon.

 _That’s my cue,_ Plagg says. He sounds, no, feels, heavy. Sad.

Adrien has very few choices. If he could have picked, he would have rather Plagg not got inside his head, because it makes his next decision, the only choice Adrien _does_ have, that much more difficult.

 _Don’t tell her,_ he thinks.

_What? Are you crazy? Marinette is running herself into the ground to make sure you’re okay, and once she finds out that you’re still here, that you’re not lost-_

_What if I don’t wake up, Plagg?_

The lull is so prominent that Adrien almost suspects Plagg has faded away. 

_You can’t think that,_ the kwami finally responds.

 _I can,_ he thinks, _And I have. If Marinette knew I could hear everything that was going on around me, could feel, was cognizant… it would make it harder for her if I never ‘woke up’. If I never come out of this, and Marinette is aware that I’m aware… it would be hell for her. She’s already been through enough of that._

_But Adrien-_

_You can’t tell her. You won’t. Promise me._

Plagg waffles, hems and haws the best he can with barely existing in the void of Adrien’s mind.

_Fine, I promise. But in return, you have to promise to wake up._

It’s a lie, and they both know it, because how could Adrien ever control it? Nonetheless, he ends their reunion with a firm _I promise._

…

“You need to be getting more sleep, girl.”

Alya. She’s visited a handful of times. The air always gets thick with remorse when she shows up - hers and Marinette’s. Marinette’s half-hearted hum is all Alya gets in confirmation. 

“Your parents are still worried.”

“They came and saw me,” Marinette says lightly. She runs the tips of her fingers lightly up and down Adrien’s blanket-covered knee. Nowadays, it seems like the only time Marinette isn’t touching him is when Jerome forcibly pries her away from Adrien’s beside and makes her go to the gym. 

“It’s not the same. And you’re missing school.”

“I know.” 

Marinette’s voice is soft and simple. Alya must know she’s fighting a losing battle, but Adrien gives her credit for persistence.

“I mean, obviously they’ll let you make it up, but you’re getting so behind.”

“Adrien and I can help each other out,” Marinette says. She sounds so certain, a statement of fact, not speculation.

“Besides, I’ve been reading a lot of physics books lately. I might even know more than this nerd by now.”

She squeezes his knee. Familiar, warm. What he wouldn’t give to cover her hand in his.

“Marinette.” Alya’s voice goes hard.

Another long exchange of silence Adrien cannot see. He gives Alya a stubborn, furrowed brow as he tries to imagine it. Marinette’s face is as blank as her voice when she speaks again.

“I’m not leaving.”

“Marinette, I’m concerned - we’re _all_ concerned - about how healthy this is. You’re turning gray and you look like a skeleton and I _know_ you could use about 20 more hours of sleep a week. Is this what you think Chat wants? For you to slowly kill yourself over him?”

Marinette sighs. 

“No. No, it’s not, and I know that. It’s just- it’s just… Imagine if it were Nino. Or me. Or one of your sisters. And imagine if it were your fault that they were here in the first place. Would you be able to walk away from that, even for a minute?”

 _It’s not your fault!_ he screams. Not even a pinky finger quivers.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Alya echoes.

The ugly laugh Marinette gives her cuts Adrien to the core. 

…

“I went to the gym today,” Marinette whispers. Her breath tickles his ear; she’s wiggled into the tiny bed with him once again. It’s becoming a regular occurrence, a ritual. Somehow, it hits Adrien as more intimate than any other part of their day, even the times when Marinette undresses and bathes him. A pearl of normalcy in the wind-battered sea of doubts: Adrien likes to reflect on how pink Marinette would get if she knew he was awake for most of his sponge baths. One day, when all of this is over, he’d like to tell her that her fingers circling his scalp, running shampoo through his hair, was one of the few things that kept him sane over the near month that he was imprisoned in himself.

“There was a young girl, maybe seven or so. She got a prosthetic leg not too long ago, and today she was able to jog on the treadmill next to me for the first time ever. She kept laughing and cheering… said she was happy to be next to Ladybug, but that she hoped I didn’t take offense because her new leg was way cooler.”

Marinette chuckles. She sounds wiped out.

“There are these bright spots, you know?” Marinette continues, “It doesn’t seem like it all of the time. Like, every time I open my eyes and see these stupid brown walls I want to puke. But then I see you, and it gets a little better. Alya sends me a ridiculous cat video, or a little girl smiles at me in the hallway, or a patient asks me to sign his cast. It’s… it’s not the worst. I just…”

Each rise of her chest brings her into contact with his side. Her hand finds its place on his shoulder.

“I just wish we could be seeing all of these bright spots together. Ladybug and Chat Noir visit sick kids, instead of _this_.”

Her breath quickens, then goes ragged. He knows without seeing that Marinette is trying to keep from cryng. Her entire body shakes against his.

“Please wake up,” she begs, “Adrien, don’t do this anymore.”

The hand that streaks through his hair is too desperate to feel comfortable, but Adrien can’t complain.

“I love you, I’ve always loved you, and I’m an idiot, and I love you so please wake up.”

Adrien has to be dreaming, but he’s never had a dream in the hospital so clear. It has never felt as real as this. Marinette, Ladybug, that she would love _him_?

“Please, Chat. Please, Kitty, darling, love, Adrien - wake. up. I love you.”

Of course Adrien returns her words, and then some, with every ounce of feeling in him. He strains against the bindings of his own body, trying and trying again to put an arm around her waist, or even simply open his eyes. Never before has he wanted to badly to cry.

Marinette raises herself up. Her shaking has intensified. Adrien feels her closeness, the warmth of her, and then- _Dieu_ , then - he feels her lips.

…

Marinette kisses him three times that night, each one preceded by a declaration of her love. She whispers them with feeling, like an incantation, the words still fresh on her lips when she eventually slips into unconscious sleep.

All night, Adrien rails. He pounds at the confines of his mind and hones every effort to the simple task of moving his finger. A single finger. He needs a twitch, a jerk, any kind of motion, because Marinette loves him, and he _cannot_ let her words go unreciprocated.

…

Her hair is still in pigtails.

All this time, Adrien had pictured her with her hair loose, but there they are: pigtails.

Marinette’s pink lips are parted, a thin trail of drool escaping the corner and wending its way down his hospital gown. He can’t bring himself to care, because Adrien has done it, he can see her, his eyes are open and Marinette is asleep on his chest and _he can see her_. 

It had taken all night, but by some magic, he’d done it.

Watching her is good and all - Adrien could do it for the rest of his life, and has a mind to do so - but it’s been too long since he’s seen the strong, clear blue of his Lady’s gaze, and he needs it on him like daisies need the sun.

He tries harder, struggling even more to move his hand, and his heart races with the new challenge. Marinette wakes to every machine Adrien is hooked up to screeching all at once. The top of her head smacks his chin, and pain has never felt so perfect.

 _Marinette_ Adrien tries to say. A rumble builds in his throat - it’s a start.

 _Marinette_. Again.

She leans back from him, sitting up slightly, and releases his hand.

“Mah-”

It’s his voice. _His_ voice. The monitors lose it. His heart probably _is_ beating an unsafe rhythm, but how could he care when Marinette looks up and fixes him with the look of one thousand sunny skies?

“Adrien,” she squeaks, “Oh my god, Adrien, you’re-”

Red jets up her neck and across her face, lessening the severity of the bruised circles around her eyes. She’s breathing as hard as he is, and every moment Adrien thinks her eyes couldn’t grow wider, they do. Marinette is beautiful, radiant, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was never, ever letting her out of his sight, Adrien might look away - his eyes burn like he’s been staring at the sun. 

Marinette bursts into tears, pulls his face between her hands, and kisses him again.

This time, Adrien can kiss her back.

…

Four weeks in a vegetative state aren’t enough for his muscles to atrophy, but Adrien is weak, and spends another fifteen days in the hospital receiving treatment. As before, Marinette sticks to him, but so does her smile.

They’re walking slowly down a hallway that’s been cleared just for that purpose. Adrien leans heavily into Marinette’s arm, and his legs wobble with each step.

“I’m so glad all of the reporters finally cleared out,” Marinette says demurely, “I thought I was going to have to punch a few of them in the face. Apparently, that’s frowned upon _way_ more when you’re not the Hero of the Paris.”

Adrien chuckles and readjusts his grip on her forearm. He is not light, but Marinette is strong.

“I don’t know, I think you’re way more intimidating as Marinette. You were just too cute in the spots.”

The last fifteen days have taught Adrien the best ways to make Marinette blush, and he never misses an opportunity.

“Stop it,” she says. The protest is light, as is the smack she deposits on his arm.

Adrien stops, needing to catch his breath. There’s something else though, too.

“My Lady,” he says.

She looks up at him with a dazzling smile. The dark circles are starting to retreat. Marinette still sleeps in his bed every night - both of them find they sleep better, more deeply, when she does. Maybe it has something to do with the lullaby of their hearts beating in tandem, or the secure weight of their hands entwined. Maybe it’s the drowsy whispers they share, talking until they both fade into garbled, soft nonsense.

“Kitty?”

He’d said it with every cell in his body that night. But in the waking world, their words had been waiting. Adrien had waited too long already - years, months, weeks. No more.

“Marinette, I love you. Did you know that?”

Her cheeks get even redder, and she ducks her head to avoid his gaze. But no, Adrien isn’t having any of that. After weeks of not seeing her eyes, Adrien isn’t going back now. Gently, he uses a hand to tilt her face up. Her eyes are wide, expression open, lips parted and inviting. Adrien bends down and kisses her. 

The touch is slow, tender, a different breed than the frantic kiss he had returned upon his awakening. Marinette’s lips are sweet syrup under his. Eventually the motion of their lips stop all together, but they remain touching, pressed close, simply staring at one another. Breathing the other in.

“I love you, Adrien,” she says. 

Adrien knows everything has changed. He knows that the world is no longer the same place for Ladybug and Chat Noir. But Adrien Agreste and Marinette Dupain-Cheng have each other, and _that_ is an incredible world to wake up to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *pats head* It okay.

**Author's Note:**

> come cry and submit your receipts for tissues and funeral materials at brettanomycroft.tumblr.com


End file.
